Laminate Flooring Install Question

[Terence McCann]

Was thinking about installing laminate flooring on the 1st floor of my home.

Anyone with 1st hand knowledge of installing this stuff? Hard, easy? Any good how to videos?

Tanks

[randynavarro]

If you've got basic skills and the right tools, its easy.

Snap-together is the easiest stuff. No need messing around with glue. To do it right, you'd need to remove the baseboard and re-install once the flooring is in--that's probably the hardest part.

Usually, install instruction come with the product. Some instructions are real user friendly, some are Greek.

[tbird]

I've laid about 1000 square feet in my home. It is very easy and fast to install. Don't make a mistake because you have to peel sections back up to get to the mistake.

I know it is not hardwood but you can't beat the speed of a pre-finished floor.

[StevenT]

I just installed a "floating" pre finished floor, and as per mfg's instructions, every joint was glued. Make sure the surface is very flat, because, since it is floating you will feel it go down when you step on it.

Also, since it is prefinished and the finish is very thin, damage cannot be sanded out. I found that out the hard way when some workers moved a refrigerator across it.

Compare the types of finishes too. Some of them are no more than a "picture" of wood laminated to the base material.

[Bain]

I recently checked out a house with a floating laminate floor. There were "high spots" that deflected downward an 1/8th of inch or so when walked upon. The buyer told me he'd spoken to someone at Home Depot--I know, doesn't have to be said--and that the guy said pulling up the shoe molding, walking on the floor to flatten it out, and then renailing the shoe molding would correct the problem. Sounded pretty dopey to me, but I'm far from an expert. Steven, are you supposed to leave any kinds of gaps in the stuff to allow for expansion and contraction?

[Brandon Whitmore]

Just finished with 500 square feet of engineered hardwood flooring in my home. I was not allowed to float the floor per the manufacturer and it was a glue down product-- big pain.

I have installed floating laminate flooring in the past and had no problems- much easier than glue down.

[StevenT]

1/8" isnt bad, I've seen worse. You are supposed to install foam sheeting under the flooring. This is for sound deadening and to correct some imperfections. There should be 1/2" expansion space around the perimeter.

The HD solution is dopey.

Check your lot #'s. Many mfg's allow for mixing lots. My customer supplied the material we installed. I questioned the lot # issue, but they ok'd it. The only problem arose when all of a sudden, after taking great pain to material so that every third row lined up, we suddenly came across lots that had different sized random lengths than the majority of the floor that had already been installed.